By Whitney

Before you can list your rental home, you will need to consider how much work will go into A good preparing, renting and maintaining it. Although you can certainly handle the responsibilities on your own, you may consider outsourcing some of the effort. Here are some of the professionals you may consider hiring:

• Property Manager (PM) – Whether to hire a PM depends on how much interaction you want to have with inquirers and tenants, as well as how much responsibility you want to have for property operations and maintenance. A property manager can field calls and emails from prospective renters, show the property, collect the rent and handle repairs, upkeep and emergencies. Of course, PMs don’t work for free. A typical fee for a property manager is 8-10 percent of the monthly rent and 80-100 percent of one month’s rent to find a tenant for your property. Rates can vary, though, if you prefer to let the PM handle only part of the responsibility.

• Lawyer – You can find forms and leases online (and if you utilize a property management company, a solid one will be provided), but if you have any special concerns or want to make the lease iron tight, you may consider consulting an attorney. Although attorneys can be pricey, having a reliable one from the beginning may be useful should you need to confront or evict a tenant.

• Maintenance Worker – You may consider an on-call handy man, depending on how comfortable you are with repairs and upkeep. Additionally, establishing a relationship with a maintenance worker may help in an emergency situation where fixes need to be made as quickly as possible. However, if your property is new or in great condition, you may not need one yet.

• Cleaning Service – If you are considering selling the home at a later date or simply want to keep it in excellent condition, you may want to hire a service and include a bi-weekly or monthly cleaning in the rent.

• Lawn Service – Like with a cleaning service, you may want to keep your lawn looking exquisite. If so, consider hiring a service to do the job exactly to your specifications and add it to your monthly rent.

Even if you decide not to hire any of these professionals, you may want to have names and/or numbers on hand should you need them down the road.

Courtesy of www.rentals.com